President says he misspoke while standing with Putin
McConnell rebukes Trump, moves to reassure U.S. allies
WASHINGTON — Blistered by bipartisan condemnation of his embrace of a longtime U.S. enemy,PresidentDonaldTrump on Tuesday backed away from hispublic undermining of American intelligence agencies, saying he simply misspoke when he said he saw no reason to believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S.election.
Rebuked as never before by his own party, including a stern pushback from usually reserved Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the U.S. president sought to end 27 hours of recrimination by delivering a rareadmission of error.
“The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t, or why it wouldn’t be Russia’” instead of “why it would,” Mr. Trump said of the comments he had made standing alongside Vladimir Putin on Monday’s summit stage in Helsinki.
That didn’t explain why Mr. Trump, who had tweeted a halfdozen times and sat for two television interviews since the
Putin news conference, waited so long to correct his remarks. And the scripted cleanup pertained only to the least defensible of his comments.
He didn’t reverse other statements in which he gave clear credence to Mr. Putin’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial of Russian involvement, raised doubts about his own intelligence agencies’ conclusions and advanced discredited conspiracy theories about election meddling.
He also accused past American leaders, rather than Russia’s destabilizing actions in the U.S. and around the world, for the souring of relations between two countries. And he did not address his other problematic statements during a week-long Europe tour, in which he sent the NATO alliance into emergency session and assailed British Prime Minister Theresa May as she was hosting him for an official visit.
“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Mr. Trump conceded Tuesday. But even then he made a point of adding, “It could be other people also. A lot of people out there. There was no collusion at all.”
Moments earlier, Mr. McConnell felt the need to reassure America’s allies in Europe with whom Mr. Trump clashed during his frenzied trip last week.
The GOP leader declared, “The European countries are our friends, and the Russians are not.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Mr. Trump was trying to “squirm away” from his comments alongside Mr. Putin. “It’s 24 hours too late and in the wrong place,” he said.
Mr. Trump still maintained that his meetings with NATO allies went well and his summit with Mr. Putin “even better.” But this reference to diplomatic success carried an edge, too, since the barrage of criticism and insults he delivered in Brussels and London was hardly well-received.
Later Tuesday, Mr. Trump tweeted, “The meeting between President Putin and myself was a great success, except in the Fake News Media!”
On Capitol Hill, top Republican leaders said they were open to slapping fresh sanctions on Russia, but they showed no sign of acting any time soon.
“Let’s be very clear, just so everybody knows: Russia did meddle with our elections,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, another steady Trump political ally. “What we intend to do is make sure they don’t get away with it again and also to help our allies.”
In the Senate, Mr. McConnell said “there’s a possibility” his chamber would act, pointing to a bipartisan measure from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, DMd., to deter future Russian interference by ordering sanctions against countries if they do.
Both parties called for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials to appear before Congress and tell exactly what happened during Mr. Trump’s two-hour private session with Mr. Putin. Mr. Pompeo is to publicly testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 25.
Mr. Schumer also urged the Senate to take up legislation to boost security for U.S. elections and to revive a measure passed earlier by the Judiciary Committee to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.
In the House, Democ r a t i c leader Nancy Pelosi staged a vote Tuesday in support of the intelligence committee’s findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 elect i o n . But even that largely symbolic measure was blocked partyline by Republicans.
Senators had floated a similar idea earlier, and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona said he was preparing a bipartisan bill. But The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said sanctions may be preferable to a nonbindi n g resolution that amounts to “just some messaging exercise.”